Park Street eatery faces allegations of class prejudice

A Facebook post by a marketing manager of a top car manufacturing company has gone viral where he is alleging a renowned restaurant at Park Street of “discrimination on the basis of class” and restricting her driver from having dinner in the joint.

On the eve of September 9, the marketing manager, Dilashi Hemnani, went for dinner in Mocambo and took her driver along with her as the latter had missed his lunch that day. The restaurant authorities had no problem in allowing Hemnani to have dinner in the joint but they continued to delay giving her a table. The reason being the driver of her car Manish was accompanying her.

As the Facebook post containing the conversation of Hemnani with the restaurant authorities reads, a staff of the joint told her that “he was not properly dressed.” The restaurant authorities had claimed that they do not have any dress code. When countered by Hemnani asking about the problem with his outfit as he was wearing neat and clean trousers and a shirt, which was tucked out, another staff then claimed him (Manish) to be in an inebriated state.

Failing to bear anymore insult, “Manish innocently” requested Hemnani to have her dinner without thinking about him. Hemnani told the staff that “on what basis they made such assumptions”.

“Did he drink in front of you or did you even go near him (they were standing 2-3 meters apart). He is driving me around since 8 o’clock in the morning leave apart being drunk he is not even had food,” she told the staff.

The conversation ended with her statement that “I don’t want to get into your racist restaurant.”

She left the restaurant on the last day of her stay in Kolkata with a “deep grief after witnessing how inhuman and shallow the world has become”. She had posted narrating the entire incident on Facebook on September 10 and it has gone viral with 18,439 users of the social networking site sharing the post and 3,797 leaving comments. Most have criticised the alleged move of the restaurant and stood beside Manish, who manages to earn Rs 275 per day after working for 12 hours but never forgets to smile and share stories related to the city of joy with the person travelling in his car.